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User blog:SolZen321/What I think SE needs and Why
Yo, I'm rather new here, but I decided to put my thoughts down on the situation with Space Engineers. You may agree, disagree, point out your own thoughts in the comments, but hopefully something positive comes from this expulsion of my thoughts. The Biggest Problem(s) At the time of this posting the biggest problem Space Engineers has, in-game, is a lack of things to do. Everything feels...empty. This is similar to Minecraft, where it's open ended and the player can build and potentially do anything, but Minecraft has bosses, and a variety of mechanics besides, mine and build. Space Engineers, is mainly, mine, build, and maybe shoot some drones with your gun and/or your ship's weapons. In short, it's biggest problem, in my opinion, is that there is no 'end game' goal, or goals to strive for. There is really nothing of note to say, 'I'm a master of this game', beside maybe building a huge ship or station, and that's not really something interesting unless you'r doing it with friends. Trying to build such massive things in creative is frankly...tiresome, not unless you have mods. Another thing, is mods, if you need someone to make a mod to solve the problems of your game...it's broken. Character Model So there have been a number of requests particularly about the character model, and most of them are understandable. In a game with multiplayer people want a form of self expression beyond simply garrish colors on your suit. Female Engineer This one is fairly simple, there are a lot of women who play this game, and with the female engineer in Medieval Engineeers, the lack of one in SE, is frankly annoying. Engineer Faces Not everyone is a brunnette caucasian guy with a mighty beard. Even if we don't get character customizations options for the face, can we at least get some other options for the face? People want to express themselves, something that's very important with a multiplayer setting. Engineer Suit/ Exo Armor/ Tiers. If we the players are engineers, then why can't we upgrade our suits? Let us also get out of the suit, since space suits are only so we can survive in space. I believe the term is immersions. So imagine this, you the player can get out of your suit, and switch to another pre-made suit, maybe even basically power armor. You can run faster, you have high health, you can jump higher, but all of that extra ability came at the cost of your jet pack and much of you inventory space. Also instead of people just making, them, how about suit upgrade and extra suits costing resources to build, so people don't abuse them. Stronger suits would be of higher tiers, which is something about later. However, in short, since we get skins for these suits, why not let us be able to actually custimize them. There are modded suits working on the idea of different roles in a group. Sektan has made a pilot suit, combat, medic, and workman suit, for the different roles player may fulfill in a group. Game Mechanics Combination Blocks Not much to say, being unable to put a machine in a space because a simple light is over head, it rather ridiculous. Aeoro Dynamics and Wings Again an immersion thing, that just makes everything so much better. It adds realism to the game without killing the fun, which is always a plus. Tier Blocks Something I think this game needs to help with the whole end game and goals. How this would work is that higher tier, and thus more powerful blocks would require more resources than their lesser counterparts, resources, that often have to be found (like materials only in space, or only there in high enough quantities) or produces, like polymers and synthetic materials. They would also require blueprints, which would be learned from destroying a block, or researched, or even given out by those capsules, instead of simply skins for your suits. This would, could give players a reason to go search for them, and create competition. Blueprints/technology could be shared among a faction. Another idea, is limiting mixing tiers, to stop people from abusing the system. Basically, if you have a tier one block, it can connect to a tier two, but not a tier three. A tier three could connect to a tier two, or four, but a four can't connect to a tier two. This way, someone wouldn't have a tier four reactor, weapons and thrusters, but everything else is tier one. The idea being tech is either too advance or obsolete to interact properly. Another thing about tiers is that with each new tier reached, new blocks/technology becomes available. An idea for how this tier system could work #Modern day technology, like the Shadow Flux used equipments mod. Basically the same, lacking a few things, like the Jump Drive, the tech is more cumbersome, and a little weaker but it works. It is also vastly cheaper. #Vanillia Blocks: Jump Drive for obvious reasons, and atmosphere, ion and hydrogen thrusters #Experiemental technology: Basically modded blocks equivalents like modular thrusters, energy weapons, like lasers and plasma cannons, maybe even basic shield generators, and, a Fusion Reactor. #Some more sci-fi sort of stuff, maybe end tier sort of projects that would be game breaking without the tier system. Furniture Yeah, people want furniture to put in their massive space stations and star ships. That's why decoration mods are some of the most downloaded mods on the workshop. This is not just beds, chairs and desks, but also maybe even statues and decorations to change the visual style of builds. Frankly ME has furniture, it cannot be that hard to bring them over to SE. Hunger and Thirst If this is added, along with a farming system, like the hydroponics farm, then please, do not make it that the player has to eat every twenty minutes. The human body can survive about what, five days without food? Granted water is more important, but that does not mean every ten minutes, like in some games. Natural Hazards From Solar Flares, to storms, and maybe even more animals, besides wolves, and frig off spider things. More natural problems, especially went presented in a fair way, means problems that the players can solve, and frankly what is an engineer but a problem solver? NPCs On that note, this is why I think SE needs NPCs. Not just to deal with the sense of lonelinest in single player, but also to answer a question. Who are we building these things for? NPCs especially in the form of colonists, provide not only a means to creating a goal, but also a measure of how well the player creations work. Do you space for a lot of colonists but no one is coming, maybe you need to make improvements somewhere? They can have their own little internal economy, they could also serve other roles than just walking decorations. With any colonist, they should be able to become, or be a specialist. Some could be medics, healing the player and any other colonist if they have supplies. Some could be security, who guard the colony and fire upon drones, wolves/spiders, and enemy players/NPCs. Then you have farmers, that you in charge of hydroponics, pilots that can be told to fly ships for you to a destination. You can have engineers, who basically go, get resources from the containers and build blocks at your command. While this can all be very interesting, I realize this can all be very annoying if not done properly. Besides needing proper tracking A.I. these npcs would need to given context on certain things. For example, where is their home base, where is their bed, where is their work station. They would need to be able to understand orders, such as stay, follow, return to work. I think it would also help if the player could put things to certain 'alerts' like in Star Trek. Green means everything is safe, yellow means it's not safe to go outside, red means the enemy is attacking. If one had these NPCs on star ships it would tell the npcs when it's safe to go out. On green and yellow, fighter pilots would stay inside, on red they would take off. With mechanic NPCS, they would know not to go outside in yellow alert, but the ship is moving and it's not going to come back for them. On that note, yeah, they would also need to be assigne ships if they're pilots or better yet minors, so they don't just take yours. To be fair, maybe colonists could just be waling decorations, that would get past all the needs for balancing this feautre would bring up, and still serve the role of dealing with the sense of isolation in the game, especially single player. Still Pirate NPCs would help if nothing else. Let's be honest someone had to have built all those bases. Category:Blog posts